Tag Archives: American Indians

Hi! Oh my gosh!! I’ve been having Soooo MUCH FUN making crocheted beaded dream catchers and learning all about the history! Ilove crocheting and I lovedream catchers! I thought I’d see if they sell at my Etsy Shop, Alaska HomeCrafters Emporium, or maybe a tourist at Arctic Rose Gallery & Art Center might find them as fascinating as I do. When I moved up to Alaska someone gave me a dream catcher to keep the good dreams coming and the bad dreams trapped in the web. I still have it! I think everyone should have one 🙂

Dream catchers are arts and crafts of the Native American people. Traditionally dream catchers were made from willow branches bent into rings or oval shapes and sinew for the web. Feathers decorate infants and children’s dream catchers, but all dream catchers are embellished with totem animals, beads, and small stones. (I love to embellish!) The ring is believed to represent wisdom, strength, and unity.

One legend tells of an elderly spiritual leader who had a vision of Iktomi, the great trickster and searcher of wisdom. He appeared in the form of a spider and spoke to him. As he spoke, the spider picked up the elder’s willow ring and began to spin a web. He spoke about the cycle of life and and many lessons. The ring represents the cycle of life, for as we come into life as infants and grow into adults, as elderly adults we must be taken care of as infants, thus completing the cycle of life.

When the spider finished, he had spun a web inside the ring and told him that when the dream catcher is hung above ones bed, good dreams will float through the web’s holes and down the strings of beads and feathers, placing good dreams into your head while one sleeps. Bad dreams are caught in the web and tangle up in the web & beads and stones and with the first rays of daylight, they evaporate and disappear. Pretty awesome don’t you think!